Already Gone M&M
by Shelbecat
Summary: Maria wonders if Michael would be happier in another life.


**Summary**: Maria wonders if Michael would be happier in another life.  
**Author's Note**: Inspired by Martina McBride's "Where Would You Be".  Post Graduation by a couple of years.

_For Belit, because her birthday's in January and I can't wait that long.  
Love you girl,  
Sherry_

She always thought the rain was soft.

Others called it wet, cold, and miserable; she always thought it gentle, soothing, and comforting.

Tonight was a night of soft rain.  Rivulets of liquid snaked their way down the window, the dancing pattern of blue and black lines they reflected washing over the faces of the couple.

Turning against her pillow, she looked across the impossibly small space separating her from her love and smiled; he was always so graceful when he slept, the lines of 'had to be hard'-ness falling away under the guise of slumber—he was almost… angelic.

"If you could be anywhere, where would it be?" she murmured into the darkness, not realizing that he would hear her until he mumbled a gruff reply.

"Sleeping."

Widening her eyes at the intrusion of his voice into her private reverie, she turned away for a moment before giggling and clamping her hand over her mouth.

"Mmm, sleep means quiet," he added just as roughly, only the hidden lilt in his voice telling her that he wasn't the least bit annoyed with her antics.

"S…s…sorry," she gasped, swallowing her laughter as she watched his eyes blink open in the inky blackness.  "You were sleeping?"

A sharp flash of lightening lit the room, followed almost immediately by an ear-splitting clap of thunder and he grimaced.  "Who could sleep?"

"I know," she confirmed, turning away again to face the window.  The rain drank of the night's attempt at intimidation, softening its arms into a welcome embrace.  Even the thunder couldn't frighten her when she lay in this house, in this bed, in these arms.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she whispered.

"Mmm, no," he grumbled, burying his face into her shoulder as he moved closer across the tiny mattress.  "Sleep beautiful, five AM not beautiful."

Of course, the five AM ploy; the reason she spent countless nights awake and alone watching the world, and him, sleep.

"Sleep," she mumbled as she reached a hand out to caress his shoulder.  She would wait for another time to voice her questions; it was probably better if his ears were unhearing anyway.

"Too late," he replied softly, his breath heavy against her neck.  "And if I'm up, you're up."

"Oh that's fair," she said, smiling into the emptiness.

"I'm a fair kind of guy."

Smirking, she allowed him to pull her even closer, rolling on her side to press her back to his chest when prompted.  She loved it when he did this—when he forgot that he was supposed to be guarded and protected and instead loved her freely and without inhibitions.

It didn't happen often.

But sometimes, on nights when the rain was soft…

"Did you want to know where I'd be?" he asked against her back, his mouth leaving a soft imprint as his lips melted themselves onto her heated skin.

"Oh," she said, freezing within his hold as her brain worked out an escape to his unknowing trap.  "No," she lied, wincing at the pathetic response.

"You did," he said, nudging her even though their bodies were still joined as one.  "Why?"

"It's just a question, it's stupid," she whispered, closing her eyes as she prepared herself for the response he would doubtlessly now provide; hating herself for already knowing what it would be.

"Where would _you_ be?" he asked instead, turning the tables on her smoothly and without warning.

"Home," she blurted, a wave of tears swelling in her depths as she felt the twitch resonate throughout his muscles and waited for his rebuke.

"Roswell, home," he stated, the phrase supposed to be poised as a question, instead placed before her without the option to deny.

"Roswell, home," she echoed breathily, her words almost inaudible against the sudden thickness the night had taken on.  "Roswell, home… with you," she added.

Refusing the option to repeat the lie he had perfected so well in their years away from there, he didn't comfort her with empty words of their eventual return, instead just traced an invisible pattern onto her neck with his mouth.

Leaning into the gesture instinctively, she cursed herself for still falling prey to his manipulations after all this time.  He always did know how to calm her; in the moment of their first kiss he had become her rock… he still was.

"And you?" she pushed herself to utter with the next breath.  She didn't want to ask, didn't want to give him the chance to echo the answer already rattling in her brain, but she knew it was her turn, and so she did.

"I'd be home too," he said, smiling against her cheek as he knew she'd be happy with his answer.

She wasn't.

She'd known he wouldn't respond affirmatively to _Roswell__, home.  For her lover, the answer had never been __Roswell, home, only briefly had it even been __here, with her, home; for him it would always be __unknown, home—__Antar, home._

A frown replaced the once contented look on her face, its shadows matching those of the dark as she settled closer against him.  The blackness lapped at the tears on her cheeks, feeding on her anguish as the night suddenly sharpened its edges against her skin.

Silence descended upon the pair, he continuing to hold her as he mutely listened to her breathing even out from the sobs she thought she was hiding; she watching the rain beat against the glass of their window, the torrent matching that in her heart beat for beat.  The air was still as she wondered if their worlds would ever truly be one and the same; if they could ever find a place upon this Earth that both of them could call home.

Lightening crashed, thunder rolled, and she giggled at its sarcasm.

"Like that?" he queried, almost asleep against the soothing rhythm of her chest rising and falling within his arms.

"It's angry," she murmured, feeling him strain to hear her beneath the continuing drumming from above.

"Mmm?  At what?"

"I don't know, just angry… and kind of sad."

"Why don't you go to sleep?" he urged softly, ignoring the confusion she painted with her words in favor of pretending he understood what she meant.

"I will," she lied, accepting that he didn't understand, wondering if she even understood herself anymore.

Shifting his position against her to slide one arm up beneath his pillow, the other fell to rest on her abdomen and he once more placed a supposed to be comforting kiss against her shoulder.

Waiting for him to settle against her before relaxing her own body, she stared at the crying sky and wondered if it had looked so sad from Roswell, if it would look so sad from his world.

"What will I do when you leave?" she murmured into the void surrounding her, praying even as the words left her lips that he wouldn't hear.

"When I leave?  I thought you said you were going to see Liz, and Monday is grocery day," he replied with a stifled yawn.

"Not tomorrow, when you leave… forever," she prodded, her mouth fueled only by her desire to see what the future would hold, her heart racing as it fought not to find out.

"When…" he muttered, his body jolting into full alert mode as he rose up on his elbow to lean over her.  "I'm not leaving," he vowed hungrily, anxious to make her understand that he would never say goodbye to her, not ever again.

She only smiled, nodding her head as new tears slipped from beneath her eyelids.

"I'm not," he repeated, reaching for her chin with his hand when she didn't respond.

"I know," she finally agreed, the truth that she didn't obvious to both.

"Hey," he whispered, pulling away to give himself room to roll her onto her back.  "Why so sad?  I'm not going anywhere."

She stared up at him from drowning eyes, inhaling shakily as she witnessed another eruption of lightening flash across his face.  "Sometimes I think you're already gone."

Her words pierced his heart and he crumbled.  "Gone?" he whispered shakily.

"I…" she gasped, reaching up to feather his broken face with her fingertips.  

"I'm here," he mumbled, completely obliterated by her statement.

"I know, I know," she hurried, rushing to soothe him as she wished her words into nonexistence.  "It's just… just that sometimes…" she finished weakly, her voice fading as she watched complete destruction mar his face.

"Sometimes what?" he rasped against the onslaught she mounted, moving away to lie back on the bed beside her.

It was her turn to rise up above him now, towering over his ruined face as she placed one hand on his chest in apology.  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

"You did," he countered, having seen it in her eyes before she ever voiced the words and now unwilling to listen to her lie in explanation.

"I did," she confirmed beneath her breath, her eyes squeezing shut as she watched his impossibly shattered heart break even further.  "I'm sorry."

He stared at her shuttered eyes, feeling every tear that slipped from beneath them slice into his crying soul.  Wincing at her words, he contemplated running from the house, from the bed, from her arms, but stopped.

"Why?" he murmured softly.  "Why, after all this time, would you say that, think that?"

"Oh… Oh God," she sobbed, pushing away from him to fall onto her elbows.  Her hair curtained her face from his view but just the sound of her anguish was enough to make him want to wrap his arms around her.

He didn't.

When it was obvious that she was alone in her fight to make him understand, she inhaled shakily and began to slowly stammer out each word.  Her face still hiding from his gaze, her words nearly inaudible as he listened.

"I… I want you to be h-h-happy.  And sometimes I d-d-don't think you are," she paused, hiccupping through the sobs attacking her throat, wanting to check if he was still listening but not daring to meet his eyes with hers.  "It's not anything you d-d-do, or s-s-say… it's just this feeling, this l-l-look…"

Throwing caution to the wind, she flipped her hair back over her head and managed to creep her eyes towards his chest.  It was still rising and falling, he was still breathing, still listening.  Slowly, inch by interminable inch falling away beneath her gaze, she climbed to his face, to his mouth, his nose, his eyes…

Stealing the courage to speak from the electric flash that lit the room, she murmured, "Sometimes I think you'd rather be out there somewhere; looking for your home instead of playing house with me."

The sky disagreed with her words, great waves of thunder washing over the pair as the gravity of her statement rained down upon them.

"That's what you think?" he muttered through gritted teeth, unable to believe that the life he had been living so successfully was one she thought he didn't want.  "You think I don't want to be here?  That what… I don't love you?"

"No!" she gasped, shaking as she saw clearly how he could think that.  "No, no… it's not that… it's never…"

"Then what?" he growled, fighting to remain next to her as she attacked every weakness he'd ever tried to keep hidden.

"Please," she begged, reaching for his face before letting her hand stop short on his chest.  "Please, I don't mean that, I don't… I just want you to be happy and sometimes… sometimes I think you're not."

She bit her lip as she watched him soak up her words.  How did she ever expect him to accept what she said without taking it as a personal attack?  She knew how vulnerable he was emotionally, still… after all this time, he still worried that he wasn't showing her enough how much he loved her, and she thought it necessary to attack this?

She truly was horrible.

Lightening made its presence known in the room again, illuminating the paired faces of the lovers—his showing heartache, hers showing loss.

She saw clearly how she had hurt him, how her worry over fears she had dreamed into existence caused him pain, and she let out a soft moan.

"I never wanted this for you."

"What?" he breathed, staring at her face as confusion marked his.  "Wanted what?"

"This, me, us, this life… all of it.  It was never supposed to be like this for you—you were supposed to fly away to some unseen world and live the life you were born to live; not live here in Shitsville with your girlfriend.  It's not enough for you, it's not good enough."

"Stop it," he snapped, reaching up to tug her face back towards his as she tried unsuccessfully to hide it.  "Is that what you really think?  That this isn't enough?"

"It isn't," she whispered, nodding her head within his hold as she winced under the strength of his gaze.

"It isn't," he echoed, releasing her as he rubbed a hand tiredly across his eyes.  "For who?" he tossed bitterly.

Falling back onto the bed, she broke as she felt his trust in her evaporate.  The rain begging for entrance rapped incessantly on the windows, it's tiny fingers the only sound in the room.

"No," she moaned softly, burying her face against his arm as she begged for his understanding.  "Not for me, I thought it wasn't once, but now… it's just you, you've never tried and I worry…" 

"Enough, okay?" he nearly shouted.  "Enough.  Why are you doing this to yourself?  Beating yourself up because you think you _made me stay on Earth and love you?" he asked incredulously, grasping her arms in his hands to shake them slightly.  "I stayed on Earth __for you, and you not thinking you had enough and taking off was something you had to do.  It wasn't for me, it still isn't."_

Panting, he searched her eyes for the understanding that she believed him.  "This has always been enough.  You, me, us… it's been all I wanted for a long time."

Sobbing harder, she wriggled to free herself from his grasp, rolling over on the bed to hide her face between her arms.  "I'm s-s-sorry," she mumbled, her body shaking as he moved in to offer comfort.

"Shh, don't," he whispered against her chilled skin.  Rubbing his hand across her arm slowly, he attempted to massage his way into her mind.  "Don't cry, please?"

"I… I…" she stammered.

"No," he breathed, attaching his lips to her shoulder delicately as he tried to soothe her troubled mind.  He didn't know where her ideas came from but he truly believed that she was wrong—this life _was enough for him; he'd made his peace with not returning to Antar a long time ago._

"You believe that I want to be here?" he asked after a moment, her shivering less as she ran out of tears to shed.

"I… sometimes?" she cried softly, cursing herself for continuing the conversation that threatened to rip them apart.

"All the time," he urged, moving onwards to her neck with his delicate manipulations.

She turned within his hold, swollen eyes peering up at his slightly raised form.  "You can't want it all the time," she murmured.  "I don't want it all the time."

Smiling, he leaned in to catch her mouth in a feather-light kiss.  "Sometimes I wish we lived in California, sure," he said, shrugging.

She paused before matching the smile spreading across his face and laughing lightly.  "L.A. would be kind of cool."

"Screw L.A., I want the beach!"

Grinning broadly, he soaked in the lighter look gracing her features and raised his hand to trace along the laugh lines.  "You believe me?" he asked.

"That you secretly want to be a beach bum?" she countered teasingly, biting her lip as she wondered if he was ready to cast the subject aside so quickly.

"Oh," he groaned, wrapping his arms around her without warning as he rolled back and brought her toppling on top of him.  Kissing her lips for a much longer moment this time, he only pulled away when he sensed that she would be ready to answer.

"Do you believe that I don't want to leave?" he said softly, praying that he'd been able to convince her of what he honestly believed to be the truth.

Her eyes never left his as she nodded slowly, making sure that he knew she was serious.

She almost was.

"I believe you," she whispered, bending down to seal the promise with a kiss.  "And I'm still…"

"Don't say sorry," he cautioned, pressing his finger to her lips as he warned her not to offer another apology.

"Sorry," she finished, winking at him as he groaned and tossed her over onto her back.

"You are the worst, you know that?" he laughed, smothering her mouth with his as he felt elation reenter his heart since the first time she'd spoken tonight.

"But you love me anyway, right?" she replied dutifully, beaming from her position trapped beneath him, enjoying the feel of his body stretched along hers protectively.

"I do," he whispered, continuing his ministrations along her neck as she turned to allow him better access, reveling in the direct view of the mottled sky she found.  It was clearing, she could sense it in the air as the rain relented in its attempt at entry and the thunder calmed to a soft simmer.

"And you're here," she mouthed silently, finally learning not to speak aloud in his presence, even if he appeared to be otherwise occupied.

He was here, he was here with her; for how long she didn't know, as no matter how many times he reassured her that he wouldn't leave, she knew that when the time came it would be her pushing him to go.

She thought everyone should get to find their home; she was lucky that she had hers in her arms.

As he picked up the pace of his actions, she knew they were sealing their pact with the highest form of intimacy and she squirmed as she felt her body grow anxious.  Making love to him had always been an experience beyond all others, one she knew would make her forget, if only for a moment, that she ever doubted where his heart was.

She promised herself that she would forget about her fears; lock them away in a dark corner where they couldn't escape and attempt the destruction of her love.

She wouldn't think about where he would be.

She wouldn't wonder when he would leave.

She would just love him, and enjoy the life he offered her, the one that he made with his entire heart and soul, no part of him held back for another time and place.

She would believe this and she would be happy, except for sometimes, on nights when the rain was soft…


End file.
